Whole Roast Chicken and Roast Chicken Thighs

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baste, butter, celery, chicken, chicken thighs, compound butter, dinner, easy, easy meals, easy preparation, french cut, garlic, mains, onion, oven, oven roast, protein, quick preparation, roast chicken, roast chicken thighs, rosemary, thyme, western, whole, whole roast chicken

Roast chicken dinner for the family! There’s nothing quite like a full roast at the dining table… and no, Nandos and Kenny Rogers do not count. Roasting a whole chicken (or just the thighs as I will show later on in this post) is actually easier than one would think.

Fresh out of the oven and piping hot, it releases a perfumed steam as you cut into the juicy roast. Absolutely divine.
My shopping haul XD. So without further ado, the ingredients:-

Ingredients (for just 1 roast chicken, you can double it if your family is as greedy as mine)

• 1.7kg whole chicken
• 25g salted butter, softened
• 1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary (or whichever herbs you prefer)
• 1 tsp chopped fresh thmye
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 medium white onion
• 1 stalk of celery of around 10 inches, chopped into large sections (optional)
• 2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary
• salt
• black pepper

Instructions

In a small bowl, combine the butter, chopped thyme, rosemary and garlic to form the compound herb butter.
  To prep the chicken, remove feet, giblets, head, neck and internal organs. Give the chicken a rinse and then pat it dry with some paper towels.
Gently separate the skin from the meat of the breast and spread the herb butter on the meat underneat the skin. If you can get to it, try to spread it onto a part of the thighs as well. Take the remaining butter and rub the skin (do it as gently as possible so the skin does not break. It is very important to keep the skin intact and whole). Rub some salt and black pepper onto the entire surface of the chicken, including the cavity of the chicken. If you’re prepping the chicken the night before, cover the chicken with cling wrap and refrigerate it. Some would condone leaving the chicken uncovered for crispier skin but I just can’t bear the thought of food exposed in the fridge!

Take the chicken out of the fridge an hour before cooking. This makes for tender chicken and even cooking throughout the bird.
  Stuff the cavity with the onion, celery and 1 sprig each of the thyme and rosemary. Here I had stuffed a lemon into the chicken but I’d much prefer the onion and celery option.
Scatter the remaining herbs on top and it’s good to go into the oven!  
Into the oven they go at 205 degrees celsius.   Roast for around 1.5 hours, basting the chicken in its own juices every half an hour.
And there you have it,  a hearty roast chicken that’s ready to be eaten with a variety of side dishes, as can be seen in the picture below!   Roasted some vegetables (recipe to come), made some mushroom soup, lobster pasta, cauliflower cheese (recipe to come) and pomme puree (recipe to come) as well as gravy to go with the chicken.

My sister also made some excellent focaccia bread to go with aged balsamic vinegar. I’m going to nick the recipe off her as well!
  Complete roast chicken dinner.

Roast Chicken Thighs

This is a good alternative when cooking for 1-2 people or if you simply prefer the thigh meat.  Clean the chicken and pat dry. You can use the chicken straight away but I prefer to make it look … somewhat more posh and french.   With reference to the above picture, I cut around the bone near the end of the drumstick. What happens is that I cut through the tendons and sinew (as seen in the top chicken). Remove visible tendons (they’re tough to eat). After which I proceeded to remove all skin, bone and cartilage from the bone end of the chicken, thus resulting the the chicken on the bottom of the picture. All cleaned up at the end.Chicken quarters cleaned up french style.

Make the compound butter (same as that used in the whole roast chicken recipe)

  Smear the compound butter under the skin as evenly as you can.

Tempt the dog (dog doesn’t seem tempted at all).Place the chicken into the oven preheated at 205 degrees celsius (ignore the 190 degrees seen in the picture) for about an hour or until juices run clear and the skin is golden brown in colour. Don’t forget to baste the juices onto the chicken, a couple of times will do I should think.

That’s it! Oh and if you have spare sprigs of herbs, go ahead and arrange them onto the completed dish for decoration.

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Lobster spaghetti in tomato sauce

Tags

basil, chicken stock, chilli flakes, cooking with white wine, cooking with wine, diced tomatoes, dry white wine, garlic, ginger, italian, lobster, lobster meal, lobster spaghetti, onion, oregano, parsley, Pasta, romantic meal, seafood, shellfish stock, spaghetti, special occasion, tomato lobster spaghetti, tomato puree, western, white wine, white wine tomato sauce

Recently I’ve been having this urge to cook lobster. Lobster… anything! I initially wanted to make a lobster roll, then I went to Signor Sassi in London and had a variety of lobster dishes. I eventually settled for making lobster spaghetti in tomato sauce and a lobster version of the Sang Har Tong Fun (big head prawn with glass noodles in wine soup). I’ve done a little research online on how to make this dish. A lot of chefs tend to boil the lobsters and then remove the meat to cook in the tomato sauce. The carcass of the lobster usually goes into a shellfish stock or a bisque later on. I do it a little differently, and I firmly believe that the lobster flavours are able to come out in all its glory this way. Obviously it would involve cooking the shell and head in the sauce ;D.Ingredients (for 2-3 pax)

• Half a lobster (this is of a larger lobster)
• 10g salted butter
• 2-3 thin slices of ginger about an inch in diameter and about 2-3 mm in width
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh basil
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped onion or shallots
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup chicken stock (best if you have shellfish stock but chicken is fine too)
• 1/2 cup tomato puree
• 1/2 cup diced tomatoes preferably with herbs and garlic in them
• 2-3 pinches of chilli flakes
• 1 tsp sugar and another 1tsp in case the pasta needs a little more sweetness
• 200g pasta (or around 1/3 of a 500g package of pasta) – spaghetti is slightly too thick so I used San Remo’s vermiccili pasta. Instant spaghetti by San Remo’s will do as well.
• Dash of dried oregano
• Salt, black pepper

Cooking Instructions

Prepare the lobster (prepare yourself I meant…. cutting that thing into half is no joke! It’s all spiny and painful! Coupled with a very tough shell, you may need a lot of strength to cut the head into two… or a very heavy object to help get that cleaver through). I suggest you use a towel to protect your hands from the lobster’s myriad spikes and a pair of strong kitchen scissors to cut through the tail end of the lobster.After a lot of effort… finally..See all that golden stuff?? That’s where the flavour’s at!Heat up some oil in the pan and fry the onions, ginger and garlic.

Add the lobster, brain side down, and let it fry for a minute (do not let the meat sear! It should be on medium fire), before adding the wine to the mix. I wanted to try to flambe the lobster, but the kitchen is so small and I was worried I might singe something so I just put the alcohol into the pan and let the alcohol cook off. This step is where you draw out the flavours in the lobster into the broth. 

Add the stock. Cook the lobster for about a couple more minutes in the stock before removing from the mixture. 

Add the diced tomato, tomato, chilli flakes, some salt, pepper and oregano to the lobster broth.

Remove the meat from the lobster shell. You can see that it isn’t cooked through and this is what we want as we will add the lobster meat back in to be cooked fully along with the pasta noodles. Otherwise we’ll have dry, overcooked chunks of lobster, which is a waste of such an expensive ingredient.

Place the lobster shell back into the tomato sauce mixture and simmer until the sauce is reduced and thickened like so. Then add the butter and mix in. I stuffed the sauce into the lobster shell to get the most of that lobster goodness!

At the same time, start cooking your pasta in boiling water with some salt. Cook it about 2 minutes less than the instructions stated in the packet because you’ll finish cooking the pasta in the sauce. 

Get the chopped basil and parsley ready. Add the lobster chunks back into the tomato sauce probably a couple of minutes before adding the pasta so that it’s cooked just right by the end of the whole process.

Drain the pasta (but not too much as we need some of that pasta water… about 2-3 tbsps or so) and add it directly into the sauce. I forgot to mention, remove the lobster shell before you add the pasta in, otherwise it’s going to be a struggle to toss the pasta in the sauce. Place the shell in the serving dish, it will serve as an aesthetic component.

Toss the pasta over low-medium fire so that the sauce gets incorporated into the noodles. Add the basil and parsley and toss a little more. Check on the seasoning and add more salt/pepper/sugar as you wish.

Place the pasta on the serving dish, top off with the lobster chunks, more parsley and some cheese.

If you like your spaghetti with more sauce, just add more puree and white wine but make sure you season accordingly. You also don’t want the sauce to be too wet otherwise it won’t stick to the noodle very well.

Will most likely make it again as I have another lobster in the freezer! Happy to say my brother seemed to enjoy it. He ate three quarters of it by himself.

Here’s a video that I think quite closely reflects how I cooked it:

Truffles Part 5: Cream of Mushroom soup with creme fraiche and truffles

Tags

appetizer, black truffle, brown mushrooms, cream, cream of mushroom soup, creme fraiche, dinner, hand blender, mushroom, mushroom soup, Soup, starter, truffles, western, white truffle oil

I love mushroom soup. Even though I’ve been eating canned Campbell mushroom soup for most of my life, nothing beats freshly made cream of mushroom soup. I attempted it for the first time as part of my truffle menu and used portobello and those nice swiss brown mushrooms. Other recipes call for er… wilder varieties of mushroom but since its just me and my helper, I decided to just use mushrooms that I’m used to. The end result should be a creamy thick soup of mushrooms and enhanced just by some chopped parsley, truffle shavings and perhaps a drop or two of truffle oil.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

100g butter

500g mushrooms (I used 250g portobello and 250g swiss brown mushrooms)

350ml chicken stock

400ml water

100g cooking cream

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp of creme fraiche per bowl of soup (you can adjust this if you like)

Fresh truffle shavings

1 tsp chopped English parsley per bowl

Salt and black pepper for seasoning

Instructions

1. Wash the mushrooms thoroughly and drain.

2. Slice the mushrooms to the same thickness (otherwise you’ll get inconsistencies in texture after blending)

3. Melt the butter in a sauce pan large enough to hold 2 litres of water. I used a wok as I’m more comfortable with it.

4. Fry the garlic and mushrooms together for 5 minutes. The mushrooms will release some liquid.

5. Add chicken stock and water and bring to the boil before turning down the heat. Cover with the lid and let it stew for about 30 minutes.

6. Add the cream and let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Blitz the soup with a hand blender. Be careful when you do this as you don’t want the hot liquid to fly all over the kitchen and onto you! 

I transferred the mixture into a mixing jug for blitzing.

8. Blitz until your desired consistency. I like mine slightly chunky

9. Ladle into soup bowl and top with creme fraiche, truffle shavings, parsley and a little white truffle oil if you like.

Serve with bread! 

Truffle Part 4: Foie Gras and fried onions crostini with truffles

Tags

appetizer, black truffles, bread, brunch, crostini, foie gras, foie gras pate, onions, starter, truffles, western

I’ve previously tried a foie gras pate and fried onions combinations. I just thought I’d try something one step further and use foie gras lobes and top everything with my beautiful winter black truffles ❤

Ingredients (Serves 2 pax)

4 slices of french baguette bread

2 lobes of foie gras at room temperature

1/2 a large onion

Black winter truffle shavings

Fleur de sel and black pepper

Instructions

1. Heat some oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onions. Fry until golden brown and caramelized.

2. This is where I made a mistake, I used the same pan to fry the foie gras and didn’t wash it. The pan should have been dry and hot as foie gras is already oily as it is. But as I reused the pan there was some residual oil and bits of fried onion T_____T. Not that it makes much difference to the taste, it just looked bad afterwards.

3. Sear the foie gras for about 45 seconds on each side.

4. Remove from the pan and slice thickly (see above).

5. Lightly toast the baguette slices 

6. Assemble your crostini! Place some of the caramelized onions on the toasted baguette, arrange the foie gras slices on it and season with fleur de sel and black pepper. For the finishing touch, just go crazy shaving the truffles all over the plate! 

Its a little hard eating the crostini as bits of onion tend to fall off but its totally worth it. The fatty rich foie gras with the sweet onions and delicate aromatic truffles truly make a heavenly bite!

Bolognese Pasta

Tags

basil leaves, bolognese, italian, mains, mince, Pasta, red sauce, sauce, shell pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, tomatoes, vermouth, western

Everyone loves pasta. There’s something comforting about all those carbs slippery in a creamy or a hearty red sauce. Another university favourite, where at the bare minimum we just cook the noodles and throw in ready to eat sauces. Ah the simple life.

I guess as we’ve grown up, our tastebuds will naturally progress so that we’d need something either more healthy/wholesome and more complex. (To be honest I’m still very happy with the noodles and sauce out of a can but that’s just me being lazy).

This is my version of bolognese, I’ve been using this recipe for many years but it could be better. This version is sourish and slightly spicy just because I like it that way! Will update as and when I try out new bolognese recipes 🙂

Ingredients (8 pax)

1kg minced meat (I use pork, but most people would use beef)

1 large green onion roughly chopped

1 can tomato puree (or 1 tube if you can’t find the canned version)

8 cloves of garlic or more if you like it garlicky, minced

1 bottle of dolmio red sauce (sometimes I use a can of tomato chunks instead)

1/2 cup of chopped fresh basil leaves

1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

3 tbsps dried oregano

50 gram salted butter

Salt and Pepper for seasoning

Optional: 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese and more for serving

Optional: 3 birds eye chillies, sliced

Optional: 1/2 cup dry Vermouth

Optional: 6-8 sun-dried tomatoes, sliced

Optional: Pureed carrots or sugar to offset the sourness from the tomatoes

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a large wok. Fry the onions first and just when it turns slightly translucent, throw in the minced garlic and fry until the garlic is golden in color. If you opt to use the pureed carrots, add it now and cook til soft.

2. Season the minced meat with salt and pepper beforehand. Add the mince into the wok, breaking the mince into small pieces as it browns.

3. When the meat is browned, pour in the dolmio sauce/canned tomatoes, the vermouth, sundried tomatoes, oregano and birds eye chillies. Stir to incorporate and let it simmer.

4. Add Worcestershire sauce and stir. Let the sauce simmer until the consistency is chunky and there’s no excess water. The sauce should be thick and chunky but not so dry such that it sticks to the wok.

5. Stir in the parmesan cheese and basil leaves.

I love to eat this with shell pasta. It holds the sauce so well!

Linguine in creamy mushroom sauce

Tags

italian, mains, Noodles, Pasta, western

– Linguine in mushroom cream base topped with earthy parsley 

Pasta is a pretty convenient food. A staple of many a student, you’ll find spaghetti packets in almost every student’s kitchen cabinet. Let’s just say I ate a ton of pasta when I was studying abroad in the UK. It was easy enough to make. At the bare minimum we would get instant Dolmio sauce, the type you can pour directly from the plastic container right onto some freshly cooked pasta. Survival skills at its best =)

And you can never get sick of it, there are so many ways to prepare pasta. A red sauce, cream sauce, pesto, aglio olio, salads and even strange bases you’d never have thought of such as tom yum pasta, which used to be one of my favorites.

I’ve included here one of the recipes that I make when I’m feeling slightly decadent and craving for the comfort of cream and carbs. The swiss mushrooms coupled with butter, cream, cheese and the earthiness of the English parsley just makes an incredibly heady combination in my mouth. There is a some heat coming from the chilli padi in the background to just cut through the richness (or jelakness as Malaysians call it) of the dish.

The ingredients for cream sauce, mushroom pasta: Linguine, Double or thickened cream, Mushrooms, Garlic, Butter, English Parsley, Black pepper and Salt

Ingredients (Serves 1 pax)

1. 100g dried Linguine (adjust according to how hungry you are)
2. 20g – 30g butter (if you’re using the smaller packs of butter for individuals, those are normally 10g each)
3. 3 cloves garlic diced
4. 5 swiss mushrooms sliced or white mushrooms if you can’t find the former.
5. 1 chilli padi
6. 1/2 cup of thickened cream or you can go by gut feel as to how much you need to properly coat the noodles
7. 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese and more to top if you wish
8. 1-2 tbsps of chopped English parsley
9. Black pepper

Cooking Instructions

1. Cook the dried linguine in salted water until your desired level of firmness. Some like it al dente, I prefer it a little more cooked than al dente. Drain and set aside.
2. Melt half of the butter in a sauce pan, add garlic and fry until golden but not brown. By this time the mixture should be fragrant.
3. Add mushrooms and continue frying. Add the rest of the butter and continue frying. The mushrooms may release some liquid, you should continue to fry it until the liquid has dissolved.
4. Add the cream and chilli padi to the pan and season with salt pepper. Add the parmesan cheese. As parmesan cheese is generally salty, check the sauce to ensure the salt level.
5. Add the drained pasta to the pan and toss for about a minute to incorporate the cream sauce and the pasta.
6. Transfer the pasta to a serving plate, scatter more cheese if you desire and the gorgeous parsley on top. Eat in front of the telly =D

Mushrooms cooking in the butter cream base

Greek Sloppy Joe

Tags

bread, lamb, light meals, pita, Sandwich, Snack, western

I don’t eat beef for religious reasons. It’s also pretty hazardous on the skin as, being ‘heaty’ it causes acne and pimples. I’ve stayed away from beef even as a kid. But I cannot ignore the fact that beef is universally enjoyed and the aroma of it even in student kitchens was mouthwatering. Admittedly, it was very difficult for me in the UK especially back in boarding school (Concord college) where they would have 4-5 choices of mains and most of them would be something beef. Beef stew, fried beef slices, beef lasagna, roast beef and the list goes on. The only choice I could go for is the only non-beef main that’s always prevalent… the vegetarian choice. Vegetarian lasagna anyone? I love my meat so the vegetarian option always leaves me craving for something juicy and meaty. The closest substitute I have to beef is lamb, which shares almost the same bloody, red and juicy meat tendencies as beef.

This is a dish I dreamt up after watching yet another beef-related cooking show on food network and Asian food channel. Sort of a Greek play on Sloppy Joe with the thick creamy greek yoghurt and lamb and mint. And it is so rich and gamey, with some arugula and mango to lighten up on the richness and provide some texture to the sandwich. Perfect snack or a light meal to quench my meat cravings. Lamb chops are even better but I’ll save that for another time.

This sloppy joe may not look pretty but aren’t the ugliest dishes sometimes the yummiest?

I’ve adapted this from http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/sloppy_joes

Ingredients (Serves 2)

1. 1 Tbsp olive oil
2. 1 medium onion chopped
3. Optional: 1 medium carrot chopped
4. 2 cloves garlic, minced
5. Salt
6. 500g ground lamb, marinated with 1/2 teaspoon salt and some black pepper
7. 2 squirts of tomato ketchup
8. 1/2 cup tomato sauce
9. 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
10. 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
11. 2 Tbsp brown sugar
12. 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
13. Black pepper
14. 4-6 pita breads
15. Mango, thinly sliced
16. 1/2 tbsp of greek yoghurt per pita bread
17. Thinly sliced mint leaves (1 mint leaf per pita)
18. A handful of arugula, washed and lightly dressed in the creamy Japanese sesame salad dressing you can find in most supermarkets.

1. Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan on medium high heat.
2. Add the carrots (if you’re using them) for about 5 minutes before adding the chopped onion.
3. Cook, stirring every now and then until onions are translucent.
4. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 more seconds. Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl.
5. Using the same pan, heat the pan on high. Crumble the ground lamb into the pan and ensure that you do not overcrowd the pan. Do this in two batches if need be.
6. Do not stir the lamb mince, just let it cook until it is well browned on one side. Then flip the pieces over and brown the second side.
7. Return the vegetables to the lamb mince in the pan, add the ketchup, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, rosemary and brown sugar to the pan and mix well.
8. Lower the heat to medium low and let simmer for 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings to taste.
9. Lightly toast your pita bread so that it’s a light golden on the outside (you can do this in a frying pan) and cut it three quarters of the way through to form a “pocket”.
10. Spreads the greek yoghurt on the insides of the pita bread, spoon some of the lamb mixture topped with mint into it along with a slice or two of mango and some arugula leaves.